By Hossam El-Hamalawy
".....There are those who by default will stand against anything Islamist, anything with a beard or niqab, and will avoid them like a plague. Hence their position varied from neutrality, as if this fight between the Islamists and the army is happening on another planet; or praying that the two sides by some miracle will finish one another off; or support the army’s crackdown on those Islamists.
And of course you got the usual “مش وقته” chorus, which always comes up whenever there are clashes with the police and the army, shouting “It’s not the time for this, we have other important matters.” And usually those “important matters” are elections, or another SCAF-sponsored milestone in the political process.
But the “Islamists” are NOT a unified homogenous block. We are talking about millions of Egyptians from different backgrounds and provinces who are part of the Muslim Brotherhood and the different Salfist groups. It’s even wrong to lump “Salafists” all in one basket. Let’s remember that young Salafis took part in the January 2011 uprising contrary to virtually all the Salafi celebrity sheikhs’ pro-Mubarak position. Many of the workers I have been bumping into during strikes from 2007 onwards have beards that almost reach their bellies and are followers of Salafi sheikhs. The latter had prohibited strikes and demonstrations, yet their poor followers obviously were moving in a different direction. Already the salafi movement is splintered, and the dismal performance of Abu Ismail in the crisis, including disowning repeatedly his supporters, is bound to create a disillusioned base. Isn’t there a critical mass that could be won to the side of revolution? Of course there is, and the revolutionary socialists have to play a role in influencing this base as much as they can, according to their capabilities and political weight.
There is nothing more farcical than the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is an iron fist organization whose members are following the Supreme Guide’s orders blindly. The organization has been marred with factions and splits for years along generational and class lines. Despite refraining from mobilizing an entire year following February 2011, there is not a single time a serious clash happened with the state without stumbling on a group of young MB members who attended the protests or the clashes contrary to the group’s line. And I personally witnessed that on several occasions.
What do you do as a revolutionary socialist in the midst of this? One should not stop exposing the hypocrisy and the counterrevolutionary politics of the MB leadership, but we should not give up on trying to attract the youth and those in the MB who are sincerely pro-revolution once again to the revolutionary camp and even winning them to socialist politics, something that I’m also increasingly witnessing. And that’s not going to happen by sitting on Twitter and ranting about the MBs like many leftists are doing, but by physically being present on the ground in the events they organize, and continuously argue and debate with their young members. And when a fight breaks out with the state, you don’t withdraw and say may God burn them both, you have to take sides. But you take sides, while still maintaining your organizational independence and fight under your own red banner and shout your own chants......"
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